


i think you're so good to me

by armutluvotka



Series: you're a freak to the end [1]
Category: Monsta X (Band), No.MERCY (TV)
Genre: M/M, Whoop Whoop, alley oop, also i thought itd b cute, and dont tell me that gun wouldnt b the most ambitious and dedicated doctor of them all, bc i fucking can, bein a fuckin DICK, but anyhow, but domestic couple at the gymmm, doctor and nurse wink wonk, domestic joogun, dont tell me that joohoney wouldnt make the softest nurse, idk why donghyuk came to mind but, jooheon is in nursing school while gun is in med school, let er rippppppp, ok? ok, tw homophobic slurs, w a random mention of supreme boi, why????, working pediatrics and whooing the kids w his aegyo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 03:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9104095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armutluvotka/pseuds/armutluvotka
Summary: domestic joogun working out at the gym and then hitting the sweat room together





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is dedicated to eli! @eli i love u u crazy nugget! hope this satisfies an inkling of the love u hold for what is joogun!

_“Have I mentioned your ass looks great in exercise shorts?”_

 

_“Shut up, you’re gonna lose count.”_

 

_“Jooheon fighting!”_

 

Ragged breaths echo off of the painted brick walls, only to be reciprocated by another sweaty body on a nearby elliptical machine. Though an elliptical machine sounds much more humane compared to being at Gunhee’s hands on a workout bench. See, it wasn’t Jooheon’s choice to go to the gym- he hadn’t expected his companion to wake up bright and early on a Saturday morning, bickering a storm over his head about how they needed to get into shape. Just last night they’d finished three boxes of deluxe pizza to themselves, and it seemed a little contradictory to have his boyfriend suddenly have developed a gusto towards the art of getting swole.

 

By now Jooheon _would have_ left the gym- by now Jooheon _should have_ left the gym. He could be working on lyrics, or even doing the laundry that’s been piling up at the foot of their bed for a week now. But under Gunhee's fascist gym regime, he's been on the bench suffering through exactly 143 sit ups. And this is only the warm-up. He groans.

 

"C'mon, _baby face_ only 23 more to go,” Gunhee sings out, clinging to Jooheon's already strained calves in order to anchor his squirming body to the bench.

 

"Yah, don't call me that!" Jooheon spits, as he goes back down for another crunch. _Only 23? Fuck,_ Gunhee’s starting to sound like Hoseok, their honorary gym rat. Jooheon should start limiting their hang out time together, he can’t date someone that religiously goes to the gym like that- though it’s not that he _can’t_ date someone like that, it’s moreso that he can’t survive long enough to date someone like that. His body will break under him, he knows it. “It’s not my fault that I was born with the face of a cherub.”

 

“You’re right,” Gunhee laughs and shakes his head, “Also, don’t tell me you’re tired already.”

 

“I’m not tired.”  Jooheon isn’t tired. _No, Jooheon’s fucking dead._ His stomach has surpassed _feeling the burn_ , and his layer of winter fat currently resides in Dante's 9th layer of hell. God help him because he still doesn’t regret eating all that pizza last night. In fact he plans on repeating the routine tonight.

 

“Uh-uh, yeah, sure,” Gunhee retorts. “I’m pretty sure Hoseok’s grandpa is more in shape than you,” he calls out, a sad attempt to motivate him in Jooheon’s opinion.

 

He goes back down onto the workout bench.

 

“I thought his grandpa passed last year,” Jooheon strains through a wall of grit teeth, as he struggles to come up for another crunch. A bead of sweat rolls down from the nape of his neck, and slides all the way down his back until it lands in his asscrack like a coin falling into a coinslot. _Nice._

 

“Exactly,” Gunhee snorts, in a _that’s the fucking point_ sort of tone, tightening his grip on Jooheon’s ankles. “May God rest his soul.”

 

“May God rest his soul,” he repeats, alongside a sigh as he plops roughly back down to continue this torture.

 

“Smooth,” Gunhee points out, and Jooheon sticks his tongue out at him in response.

 

He feels the rumble of Gunhee's chuckle shake through his shins, and if he weren't vigorously trying to finish these sit ups, he might have taken a moment and appreciated the brunette's laugh. But every time he finds Gunhee cute, he makes sure to remind himself that this is also the same man that dragged Jooheon to the gym against his will while he was trying to watch Orange is the New Black. Does Piper ever catch the chicken? Well, shit, Jooheon won't know because he's going to die on this _fucking bench._

 

"Shut up, you love this baby face," He says through grit teeth, but it comes out as more of a strangled yell, and a few heads turn but Jooheon doesn't see.

 

"Never said I didn’t, _babe,_ " Gunhee counters.

 

“Shut up!”

 

_18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13,_

 

Jooheon's body is starting cramp past oblivion as he powers through the dwindling number of sit ups; it feels like someone is beating his abdomen with a big, pink, dildo. The blunt yet stinging expanse of pain only gets worse and worse as he nears the finish. And he tries his best to pick up the pace, even he dares to envision himself as Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson just for a split second to maybe give himself some residue of what strength that man may actually have. He’s tough he tells himself. He’s motherfucking Lee Jooheon. Baby face in the streets but Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson in the sheets. _Hell yeah._

 

“Come on, don’t stop now,” Gunhee calls out, and Jooheon feels the billionth stray bead of sweat drip down his tomato red face, the salty liquid dissipating between his lips, and pooling in the gaps between the wall of grit teeth that he carries. _Come on, come on, come on,_ almost there.

 

With every continuing sit up, his body aches more and more- it feels like someone’s been pouring lighter fluid on his gut, and has decided that now is the time to light it up. There’s a whole fucking forest fire in his abdomen, the voracious flames of exercise licking up and down at the expanse of his muscles.

 

_10, 9, 8, 7,_

 

The once near silent intakes of breath turn into something sharper, and louder- each inhale is a noise that pierces the veil of the bustling gym’s atmosphere. Though not everyone else may hear it, the people in their immediate surroundings reciprocate the chorus of heavy breaths with their own, like the steady beat of a war drum gradually growing faster and faster with each passing second.

 

_He’s fucking pumping iron._ Pumping that _fucking iron_ like no iron has been fucking pumped before. He’s fucking Jooheon and he can fucking do this. He can take on every single person in this fucking gym all at once at the same fucking time because that’s how fucking hardcore he is.

 

_5, 4, 3, 2, 1,_

 

The wall of grit teeth releases itself to unveil an inhuman wail that escapes his throat- the mangled battle cry of a defeated soldier, as he manages to pump out the last two sit ups. This time, no heads turn, everyone around them silently acknowledges how hard he’s been working for the past 35 minutes to get through these sit ups, and now that he’s finally done, he slams his back on the workout bench with a loud plop, reveling in the sweet release of immobility.

 

His abdomen churns with the _fucking burn_ , and his hands rush to massage his poor gut that feels like it’s been shanked 143 consecutive times with a sharpened candy cane, just for the spirit of the holidays. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t even think about exercise until after Christmas, or better yet New Years, when he can lie to himself for the _nth time_ about how he’s going to finally make an effort to get into shape- but that doesn’t mean he ever wants to act on it. Simply thinking about getting fit is enough of a resolution for him. But not for Gunhee apparently.

 

“Oh, fuck, dude- I’m never doin’ that again,” he murmurs, eyes pinched shut as he lets his body calm a bit. He feels Gunhee give him a reassuring pat where he’d been holding to his shins, and he hears him get up. Eyes open to find the brunette already looking at him, and he smiles. Gunhee can make every moment feel like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Except gayer. Way gayer.

 

Despite the aftershock of the pain resonating through his aching bones and searing muscles, Jooheon focuses on Gunhee’s smile, and how it illuminates his face. How even through sweat and worn exercise clothes that his lover can look like something out of a fairy tale. Something voraciously extraordinary, akin to a prince charming. Even without thinking, his face mimics the smile he finds himself admiring. A peak of light through the blankets of horizon.

 

“You did good,” Gunhee praises. “I thought you’d flake, but you did all of them. I’m impressed.”

 

“Yeah, well, it wasn't that bad,” he lies, shrugging as he sits up and joins the other in standing up. He hides the wince that comes from the ache in his tummy. “I could do this all day if it means I'll be doing it with you.”

 

Gunhee smiles and shakes his head; a hand clamps down on Jooheon’s shoulder and he wraps his fingers around his lover’s wrist absentmindedly. He lives for these small moments. Life’s all about the roses, not the meadow.

 

“All day, huh? Well let's put that to the test, _handsome_ ,” and with that, Gunhee manuevers his hand around around Jooheon’s wrist and drags him off to the nearby treadmill machine.  

 

He’d regret overcompensating, but if it makes Gun happy, then Jooheon’s willing to start another Cold War.

 

“Alright, champ- give me a mile,” Gun says, fiddling with the buttons on the exercise machine. By the time Jooheon musters the strength to argue back, Gunhee’s already jogging at a slow pace, and Jooheon quickly fiddles with random buttons until he’s jogging alongside him.

 

“Look,” he pants. “I know you’re in med school and all-”

 

Gunhee cranes his head to look at him expectantly, eyebrows raised. Jooheon swallows.

 

“But isn’t this a bit... _too much?_ I mean just last night you were seein’ how much pizza you could fit down your throat at once, without killing yourself. What’s with the 180?”, he asks.

 

Gun shrugs, “Does there have to be a reason to get healthy? I mean you’re studying to be a nurse, shouldn’t you be all for good health and shit?”

 

_“Touche,”_ he responds, but it comes out sounding more like a wheeze.

 

After running a mile, or should he say running for five minutes and then spending the rest aiming for a solid powerwalk while he clutches his chest through a mini cardiac arrest, he’s dragged off to the weights where he finds his true talents in the gym environment.

 

That’s right, he spends his time sitting next to Gunhee saying shit like _‘wow Gun, looks like you have some guns on you, huh?’_ , before he gets shooed to the leg press machine where he finds some peace in doing reps. Surprisingly, his legs aren’t as weak as he’d thought of them- the treadmill gave him a run for his money, but it was nowhere an accurate measurement of his powerful thighs.

 

He waves at Gunhee, who’s currently on the chest press machine, with a content smile on his face, and puts both of his earbuds in to continue doing reps. That state of inner peace lasts him about a quarter of a Michael Jackson song before he feels a familiar constricting feeling in his chest. That’s when Jooheon decides that he’s done enough legs for the day- getting off of the machine, he retrieves some cleaning wipes nearby and tries to kill time by wiping down every inch of the leg press machine. He’d been in middle of going through and wiping down every individual weight on the machine, when he feels a hand on his shoulder and he comes face to face with Gun.

 

“Oh, are you done pumpin’ the guns already?” he reaches a hand and gives a light hearted squeeze to Gun’s biceps. It’d be a lie if he wasn’t kinda turned on right now, because _damn Gun has some guns._

 

Gunhee nods, and gives him a toothy grin before snaking his arms around Jooheon’s torso, pulling him close. He plants a sloppy kiss on Jooheon’s cheek which makes him reciprocate a smile.

 

“Go away, you smell like ass,” he laughs, playfully trying to shove Gun off of him.

 

“Yeah, you’d know what that smells like right?”

 

“Yah! Be quiet,” Jooheon fusses, throwing his head back to let out the champagne bubbles of laughter spilling from his parted lips. Gunhee takes the opportunity to place a few chaste kisses up and down his lover’s neck.

 

“Hey, let’s hit the sweat room,” he hums between kisses, placing a last one on Jooheon’s cheek and untangling himself from the other male’s body. “And then go home.”

 

Jooheon nods and lets one hand drop to Gunhee’s, fingers linking amidst that of his lover’s. At first, they were wary of showing affection because no matter where you are, homosexuality seemed to be taboo- even in a college town. He recalls their first couple attempts at public displays of affection and almost laughs- he remembers his cautious eyes searching every person for any hints of disapproval, and if found any, the overwhelming urge to shield Gunhee, even if it meant that the bullets of _their words_ would be biting onto the flesh of _his_ _back._

 

But one day Gunhee sat him down, with kind eyes and soft words- delivered to Jooheon that he knew what he was doing, and that he couldn’t protect him from every malice filled word and looks of disapproval. That some people were incapable of loving other humans so much as to allowing them to be happy- their minds simply couldn’t adapt. And Jooheon didn’t want to accept that, he still feels uneasy at considering the notion that Gunhee may be judged in the professional world for his preferences- but in some ways he’s grown more at peace with himself, _because his world is Gunhee_. Not those people who aren’t supporting them.

 

His world is made of Gunhee and their friends and the occasional kind stranger who will be there to help them. And it’s not ignorant to disregard the other people (it also took him a while to come to that conclusion, but fuck them). In the grand scheme of everything, some pissed-off-at-the-world baby boomer won’t sour his day. In fact, if he’s feeling especially petty that day, it brightens him to spit that spite back into their grimy old faces.

  


The sweat room feels like hell, and there’s the overwhelming urge to make a sin joke, so he does.

 

“ _Hey, Gunhee-_ do you think this is what hell’s gonna feel like?” Jooheon begins. “Y’think us abominations should come here every day or to get used to the heat, or should we let Satan surprise us?”, he nudges Gunhee’s arm with his elbow.

 

Gunhee laughs, and of course he does, _Jooheon’s fucking hilarious_ , but then his expression soon turns sullen, and his gaze holds that of his boyfriend, concern underlying the dulling twinkle behind his eyes.

 

“Did someone say something again?”, he asks, raising a hand to linger on the brunette’s bare shoulder, but then bringing it back down when he’s met by the overwhelming amount of sweat lining Jooheon’s skin. “Who was it?”

 

Jooheon’s smirk doesn’t fall off of his face as fast as Gunhee’s, instead it remains there stuck- akin the eerie scenery when there’s a glitch in one of those old VCR’s where the screen remains frozen, with the exception of the occasional flashes of static. In his case, those flashes are the memories reflecting back into his face like a mirrored image on a screen. The look of disgust on his colleague’s face as he mentions his partner, and then that insult spat at the both of them- God, he fucking hates that word. He’d trade his full head of hair, if it meant he’d have that fucking word wiped off the face of the planet. But when the expression does recede from his face, he leans forward to hide it from Gunhee.

 

He lets his body tip forward, and allows his elbows to meet the white towel draped over his knees, that extends to cover up to his wasit. Hands are clasped together for the brief moments that he dares and tries to gather some explanation- some excuse to avoid to topic. Because, fuck, he hates bringing it up- he hates that he cares so much as to what other people think, and he hates that he has to involve Gunhee every time something like this happens. _Why can’t he just keep it to himself? Why does it matter so much to him? What happened to it being just them against the world, and nothing else?_

 

“Jooheon?”

 

He sighs, dropping his head and letting his shoulders deflate. There’s no reason to keep a bravado in front of Gunhee when he can literally cause him to spill just by simply uttering his name once.

 

“Yeah, _someone-_ someone had to be a dick about it,” he begins, lips moving slow. A beat of sweat rolls down from his forehead, and pools at his cupid’s bow, sitting heavy there for the few moments of silence shared between the lovers. The droplet rolls into his mouth once he musters the energy to speak again. “His name’s Donghyuk, he’s a first year student at the nursing school. Y’know how those cocky shits can be, thinkin’ they finally made it and all.” He shakes his head.

 

The salt of his sweat lingers heavy on the tip of his tongue, akin to the taste of the many tears he’d shed at the beginning of their relationship- every tear for every insult, every god damn rip at the two of them. Now he tries to keep them to himself, but on the occasional he’ll explode- he’ll scream his throat raw and bang on the walls until their land lady receives a call from one of their neighbours worried that there might have been a robbery or something.  

 

_He wishes he could be more like Gunhee;_ he wishes he could keep silent like him, he wishes his walls wouldn’t break at every attempt against them. But sometimes he wonders- does Gunhee feel the hurt he does? Does he ever feel the anger seething through his veins, only to be spat out in the form of blood and bruised knuckles? Does he ever get the urge to do something bad and then actually do it? Maybe they’re on the same page, maybe-

 

“Hey, you’re bein’ quiet again,” Gunhee begins, raising a hand to let it finally rest on Jooheon’s shoulder. The sweat doesn’t bother him as much anymore, and instead of being choked by the heat, he now feels like he’s being choked on something much more dull and insidious. Something shared and defined by forbidden love only. “There’s nothing wrong with feeling hurt.”

 

Jooheon turns to peek at Gunhee, whiskey hues grazing the sight of the other from above his shoulder. He feels his bottom lip wobble, and his jaw clenching to the point where he can feel the steady thrull off an onset headache slowly starting to batter his skull. And he knows he’s being overly dramatic- he should leave the past behind him, where it belongs, but how can he do that when Gunhee is there too? _When Gunhee is his past, present, and future?_

 

Gunhee scoots closer in response, this time letting his hand snake further along the expanse of Jooheon’s back until his arm is fully draped over him like a safety blanket. They’re too hot and sweaty to be this close but he doesn’t give a damn, because Jooheon loves Gunhee no matter what they’re both like. He loved him when he was the cocky teenager with the shitty bowl cut; he loves him now as his soft smile is framed by the sweaty strands of hair stuck to his face; and he’ll love him ‘till the very end, even when they’ll both be bald, wrinkly, old men.

 

_And maybe that’s what’s killing him. Loving someone so much, and having the world not understand one bit of it._

 

Beside him he hears Gunhee utter a soft sigh, and he sees the brunette look off into the distance. There’s three things that can come out of Gunhee when he’s like this; an anecdote that undeniably carries some lesson relating to their current situation, a joke to lighten the mood, or his filling silence where communication is spoken through nothing but exchanged touches. Jooheon finds it that right now Gunhee gives him neither three.

 

_“I love you, Jooheon,”_ Gunhee begins, voice soft like the distant rumbling of thunder that may soothe one to sleep. The rest of his voice fills the room like the rain that would follow. Rhythmic, steady, and purposeful. “I love you for caring so much- because _shit,_ you do it enough for the both of us.”

 

“But that’s not go-”

 

“Hey, let me finish,” Gunhee interrupts, giving him a light slap on the wrist with his free hand. “As I was saying,” he clears his throat and turns to meets his gaze with the same tender eyes that Jooheon falls asleep looking into every night.

 

“You care enough for the both of us- and you shouldn’t have to. I’m sorry that I don’t ever talk about this shit, but fuck sometimes they say the worst things,” Gunhee begins. “Joking about being an abomination is funny and all but when someone screams it into your face wholeheartedly it just… it hurts,” he continues, one hand wiggling in between Jooheon’s two clasped ones. “And I don’t wanna give those dicks that power over me- _over us,_ y’know?”

 

“I’m not saying that it shouldn’t hurt- it _does_ , and it _will_ , but the pain of losing you would hurt a million times worse,” Gunhee breathes, “I would rather have people yell and scream the most terrible shit at me for all eternity than to lose you, and if you’d rather have me be more assertive towards people like that, then _I will_. I just want you to feel safe with us.”

 

Gunhee leans forward, and presses a chaste kiss to Jooheon’s temple, and Jooheon, in return, leans his head into the kiss as if it were the last one that would be shared between the two.

 

“ _I do_ , feel safe with us,” he begins, both hands enveloping Gunhee’s one. Fingers absentmindedly toy with Gunhee’s as he takes a breath to speak again, gaze falling to the floor briefly in doing so. “God, I love _the shit_ out of us- and I hate giving them any power over us too, but I just don’t see how they can call you all of these shit things when they haven’t even met you yet.”

 

“Like if they knew that you left dirty dishes out for a week straight, and leave the bathroom a fucking mess everytime you get out of the shower, and _then_ said those things about you, I might agree-” he laughs, and Gunhee nudges him teasingly with a little ‘ _you fucker’_ escaping his lips in response, before letting his face fall into something more sullen again. _“But that’s the thing.”_

 

“They don’t _know_ _us_ \- they don’t _know you_. Who _the fuck_ are they to say shit like that? Telling us we’re gonna be damned for all eternity when you’re literally the best fucking person on the planet, Gunhee? You have the _biggest_ fucking heart and you don’t deserve to have people shit on it left and right,” he fusses, frustration practically dripping from his tone of voice. “And I hate that I have to be surrounded by that!”

 

“I don’t go to nursing school to be called a fucking _faggot_ everyday- I’m there to get my degree and get the fuck out, y’know? I’m there to help build a future for us, to help us live our dreams, and out of nowhere dickheads like that just come there and just, _just-_ ” Jooheon groans, one of his hands reaching up to his face to pinch the bridge of his nose. _God it’s fucking hot_ . “It’s just _bullshit_ , man, I dunno.”

 

He sighs in defeat, only to feel Gunhee’s hand retrieve the one on his face, holding onto it tightly. Their faces are closer, as if they’re kids again, exchanging secrets on the playground.

 

“Hey, I know- it’s not fair. _But, fuck ‘em!_ ” Gunhee murmurs, a small smile quirking on his lips, brightening his face like the inkling fingers of a morning’s dawn rising above the horizon. “You’re there regardless, _kickin’ ass_ \- even _through_ that bullshit, you’re gonna be a 20 times a better nurse than that _Douchehyuk_ will ever be.”

 

“I mean nurses are supposed to be _compassionate_ , and that _little shit_ \- if he can’t have the decency to respect other people with different lifestyles than him, then he’ll _never_ fucking make it out of his first year,” Gunhee continues, tone growing louder and louder as he sees the first hints of a smile slowly sculpting a foundation in Jooheon’s expression. “I mean, what’s he gonna do when a gay couple comes into his clinic? D’you think they’ll let him off the hook for not wanting to serve people like that?”

 

“Hell no,” Jooheon answers, slowly.

 

“ _Hell  no is right!_ ” Gunhee beams, squeezing Jooheon’s hand before bringing it up to his lips to kiss it. “And what I’m trying to say is exactly that,” he continues, murmuring the words against the skin of his lover’s hand.

 

“Assholes like that will get their _retribution_ \- maybe not at this moment, but they will,” Gunhee pauses. “And it’s not your _job_ to feel like you have to give that to them. You’re not some mystic force of the universe, you’re a _fucking person_. You have feelings and you hurt too. It’s not your responsibility to tear yourself apart for the sake of putting everyone in their place.”

 

“His biggest punishment will be seeing _your_ fucking success- all of those assholes will probably _shit_ themselves when they see you be some hotshot nurse married to a hotass doctor, that bein’ me, and making a shit ton of cash and living fucking lavish,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper at the very end to further communicate his point. “So don’t tear yourself apart for _douchebags_ that don’t even matter. Focus _on us,_ focus _on you_ , focus _on what you want_ , and nothing more. _The rest will pass.”_

 

_“Promise?”_ Jooheon asks, hues wavering as he wills every inch of himself to wrap around Gunhee’s words, to engrave them into his heart as the scripture to worship and follow after every day.

 

_"I promise._ ” And with that Gunhee links their pinkies together, while Jooheon takes the initiative to do the same with their lips. “ _Fucking cross my heart and hope to die_ ,” Gunhee murmurs against Jooheon’s lips, letting his lover drink as much as every word, to quench the ache that’d plagued his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> come scream @ me on armutluvotka.tumblr!!! or scream at me on here too!!! i literally NUT w every comment (#commentkinkconfirmed lol)!!!! i wanna work on making this a part of a series of domestic one-shots all set in the same universe!! i'll take requests too!! 
> 
> hope u all enjoyed!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank u so much for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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